From rap battles to break-dancing, hip-hop rules in Deep Ellum on Thursdays

Thursday nights at Independent Bar & Kitchen could be considered Hip-hop 101. These weekly events are designed to help the core elements of hip-hop thrive in Dallas.

"I wanted to make sure all of the hip-hop elements are happening in Deep Ellum," says Joel Salazar, who partnered with IBK creative director Moody Fuqua to curate Thursday-night events at Independent Bar & Kitchen. Those elements of hip-hop are DJing, emceeing, graffiti, and b-boying/break-dancing, and each Thursday night focuses on one.

Under the name Too Fresh Productions, Salazar has been booking hip-hop shows for over a decade. A few years ago, Fuqua was responsible for programming at Crown and Harp (R.I.P.), and the hip-hop shows he put together with Salazar were some of the most memorable. The two decided to pick up where they left off.

Their weekly series called Elluments starts with a DJ on the first Thursday of the month, then follows with live graffiti. On any given night in Deep Ellum, there are already plenty of great DJs in Deep Ellum, and the neighborhood has no shortage of graffiti or live painting. But b-boy battles, the events that happen on the third Thursday of the month, are not as common.

After the room fills up, many crowd around the windows and watch from the sidewalk.

It's truly an athletic competition. Dancers wow crowds with martial art stunts. Ex-cheerleaders and professional dancers get bruises and scrapes on the floor. And dancers from many different cultures offer a diversity of styles, like housing, juking, popping, krumping and voguing.

"To me, what cultivates hip-hop is gymnastics, martial arts, and James Brown," says Claudette Brewer, a dance instructor who organizes the b-boy battles. "It's just like a sport — and we tend to get pretty aggressive."

Indeed, it's not unusual for dancers to yell at DJs and argue with judges.

Freestyle battles are also intense and require unique audience participation. On the fourth Thursday of the month, emcees sign up and put $5 in a pool to compete tournament style, facing off with other rappers one-on-one for three rounds.

In the first round, the rappers take turns freestyling over a beat about anything they want for 45 seconds at a time. Whoever gets the loudest response from the crowd advances. In the second and third rounds, the remaining MCs have to rap about random topics suggested by the audience.

Throughout the tournament, the competition inevitably gets heated: The last rapper standing wins — and takes home all the money.

"I was doing rap battles for eight years," Salazar says. "People would cuss each other out and make fun of each other with 'yo momma' jokes. It takes a certain emcee to get into that style."

But most rappers know how to freestyle to a beat, and random topics ensure that the rhymes are fresh.

"The way that you do it is all about aggression," says Xavier Choice, the hip-hop artist known by his last name who won the March freestyle battle. "You may not believe any word I say. But at the end of the day, you're going to know that I believe every word I say. I don't get angry, but I get competitive."

The emcees still make fun of each other and use profanity, but the tone ultimately seems more like storytelling than battle.

"We're preserving hip-hop culture first and foremost," Salazar says. "This is a platform for people who want to be a part of that, a place for like-minded people to come together. But we are also exposing this culture to people who are not used to it."

A look inside Too Fresh Productions' hip-hop nights in Deep Ellum

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